1. Field
Embodiments of the invention pertain to electrical connectors. In particular, embodiments of the invention pertain to circuit board-to-circuit board electrical connectors having electro-optic modulators.
2. Background Information
Microelectronic devices are often debugged or validated by testing prior to their widespread release. The testing commonly includes capturing electrical signals exchanged with the microelectronic device, and analyzing the captured electrical signals using a logic analyzer.
Different approaches for capturing the electrical signals are known in the arts. Several approaches will be discussed briefly in order to illustrate certain concepts and help in understanding the significance of the developments described herein. The approaches discussed below are not intended to be exhaustive.
One approach for capturing the electrical signals uses direct probing in which electrical probes are landed directly on a bus or serial interconnect that carries the electrical signals to and from the microelectronic device. However, potential drawbacks with this direct probing approach include perturbation to signal integrity and/or that significant challenges may be encountered when implementing this approach at speeds of about 5 Gb/s or higher.
Another approach uses copy and repeat in which a specially designed debug chip is placed on the serial link to intercept incoming data from the microelectronic device, send a copy of the data to the logic analyzer, and then forward or repeat the data to a target destination. However, potential drawbacks with this copy and repeat approach include potentially perturbation in latency and/or increased area, power consumption, or cooling resources. The debug chip may also take time and effort to develop and/or change.